The Whole Mess and Other Stories
Jack Skillingstead
(Author)
Description
What does it mean to be human in a universe of shifting, sometimes terrifying realities? Eighteen stories from Jack Skillingstead's second decade of publishing feature intense and surprising explorations of who we are, who we wish to be, and who we can't be.
In "The Whole Mess" a genius math professor solves a multiverse equation only to find himself pursued by ancient Masters across the many iterations of his could-have-been lives. "Straconia" gives us a Kafkaesque world where all the lost things go, including people who must first find themselves before they can find a way back home. "Tribute" looks at a post-NASA space race that goes nowhere-until an unlikely pair of marooned astronauts find each other and the future.
Also included in this collection is "The Writing Life," a self-reflection on memory, ambition, and imagination in the formation of one writer's journey.
Product Details
| Publisher | Fairwood Press LLC |
| Publish Date | November 07, 2023 |
| Pages | 334 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781958880128 |
| Dimensions | 8.5 X 5.5 X 0.8 inches | 0.9 pounds |
Reviews
"Full of stories that expand and challenge the mind, this collection cements Jack Skillingstead as a master of the short form." - John Joseph Adams, editor of Lightspeed Magazine and series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy
"These stories are pre-eminently about real people making their hardest choices. A master of the many worlds of science fiction, Jack Skillingstead is also one of our most humane writers." - James Patrick Kelly, winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards
"Jack Skillingstead's stories are challenging and intriguing, often touching, always fascinating. He's a writer who proves that science fiction can have heart. I can't recommend this collection highly enough." - Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches
"The Whole Mess is a beautifully crafted exploration of the human heart told through the broad palette of science fiction." - Brenda Cooper, author of Edge of Dark and The Silver Ship and the Sea.
"This is a wonderful collection of stories about people caught in challenging situations who desperately need to both figure what's going on and how to extricate themselves from their dire and disorienting circumstances. Jack Skillingstead has an amazing ability to bring us right into the thoughts of his characters and make us feel they are our own." - Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov's Science Fiction
"Skillingstead has honed science fiction to its sharpest cutting edge . . . Beautiful, daring, imaginative - this collection secures Jack's legacy as one of the masters of modern science fiction." - Ted Kosmatka, author of The Flicker Men and The Games
"Jack Skillingstead explores how we experience reality, parallel realities, artificial intelligence, and the slippery nature of the heart in this important and thought-provoking addition to the SF library." - James Van Pelt, author of Summer of the Apocalypse
"[Skillingstead's] a craftsman. His sentences are spare and clean, the paragraphs balanced, yet there are so many moments that rise toward poetry. He has a gift for finding new, graceful ways to describe things we've all experienced and seen in print a thousand times." - Daryl Gregory, author of Spoonbenders and Revelator
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